Out of the Future
by ilexx
Summary: Past Ouroboros. Beka, Trance. On Dylan. Because I keep getting the question whether I think Beka and Dylan to be in love with each other. And because the admittedly unsatisfactory answer is that I think that's not the point.


I don't own anything Andromeda.

Set after Ouroboros, right before Lava and Rockets.

**Out of the Future**

She was standing on Command, very erect, her feet a bit apart, arms crossed on her chest, watching the _Eureka Maru_ depart with Dylan and Tyr onboard, her jaws clenched at the thought of being once more left behind on an _Andromeda _dead in the water, badly damaged after Harper's tesseracting experiments and in dire need for parts its captain and weapons' officer were supposed to find, while she was to 'hold the line' and 'cover their backs', painfully aware that in fact she was utterly unable to rush off to assist them should anything go wrong.

"I forgot how much you hate it to see anyone off. I forgot how much you care, how much of a mother-hen you can be..." a cool, a bit stand-offish voice said from the side. Beka Valentine lazily turned her head, almost forcing herself to tear her eyes away from the monitors showing the departing freighter and throw a distant glance at the unfamiliar, beautiful, bronze-golden... thing beside her.

"I'm sure they will be all right," she said in a somewhat dismissing tone. "I mean, after all, you said you came back to make everything better, right Trance? And I don't quite see how anything could be better if something happens to Tyr or Dylan right after you show up. Or am I missing something?"

"I also forgot how... private you can be, how much you dislike to see someone prying on your feelings," the woman who had replaced their old, purple 'good-luck' charm said. Beka didn't reply, merely resigning to turn her gaze back to the monitors and resume her stance, her black-clad, perfect silhouette and pale profile clearly sketched against Command's grey background. "And I indeed forgot how beautiful you are!" Trance concluded with a small sigh.

The blonde head turned again around, steely-blue eyes fixing on her.

"You seem to have forgotten quite a bit," the young woman calmly stated. "Which is small wonder, considering how that... _thing _that was me looked like... You... we all must have been through a lot."

"I trust we can prevent all of that from happening," Trance reassured her.

"Yes..." It didn't sound too hopeful. The young, golden woman smiled sadly.

"You don't seem too trustful..." she ventured. Beka perched her lips, but didn't reply. Trance sighed in sadness. "But Dylan said..." she began.

"I know what Dylan said," _Andromeda_'s acting captain interrupted her. "Dylan said what Dylan could be expected to say to something like that. Dylan reacted as was to be expected. And I too react as was to be expected. When confronted with freakiness, meanness, evil, things I don't like or don't understand, my instinct is to run – or fight. Dylan's is to look into the matter, give it a chance, try to find a way to... make it all better. His instinct is to... **trust**."

"Unlike you."

"Unlike me," the blonde confirmed, with a thin smile. Trance looked at her pensively, the warmth in her large brown eyes the only familiar thing Beka could detect about her.

"I haven't forgotten how much you like him, though," the warrior girl finally said with a tiny smile of her own. The woman's grin deepened to an indulgent glow.

"Small mercies..." she shrugged with a lightly ironic undertone.

"I hope I'll soon get reacquainted with your reasons for it, as well," Trance added.

"Don't tell me you forgot those, too..." Beka said sharply, the playfulness gone again from her expression. The other woman frowned.

"It's difficult..." she attempted to explain. "So much has happened..."

"Like what?" Rebekkah Valentine wanted to know, curiosity now evident on her face. Trance shrugged. "Tell me, dammit!" Beka admonished her more forcefully. "What about Harper?"

The young girl sighed.

"He... he changed..."

"In a bad way?"

"Not in a good one, at least."

"And Tyr?"

"Founded his Nietzschean Empire."

"That's good," Beka ventured. Trance shook her head in silence. "No?"

"No," the golden being sighed again. "But you succeeded..." she offered, almost like some sort of consolation.

"By the looks of it I'd say that I had some price to pay for that!" _Andromeda_'s XO spat out. "What about Dylan?"

Trance closed her eyes, in a pained expression.

"Trance, tell me!" Beka ordered sternly. The younger woman drew in a shuddered breath.

"He was..." she began, had to stop, hesitated, started anew: "Let's just say that Dylan was part of the price we both had to pay," she finally brought out.

For an instant she meant to catch a glimpse of Beka's eyes welling up, but before she could confirm her impression, the blonde had turned around, hiding her face from her. When she finally addressed her again, both her face and eyes were dry, though.

"See to it that he isn't this time around," she told Trance sternly, in a cold, commanding voice.

"It... it wasn't my fault, Beka," the golden woman tried to appease her.

"I don't give a damn about whose fault it was or wasn't, Trance!" the older woman hissed furiously. "Like you, I have a gift for forgetting: things, places, actions, people. I forgot my own mother, every now and then I even forget my father, I can spend months on end without thinking about my brother. I have buried so many faces so deep... But I strongly advise you to see to it that I don't have to do this with Dylan, because his is **the **one face that I'm not likely to forget. Ever."

"Why not?"

"Because. What does it matter why?" Beka asked, still enraged, then sighed upon seeing the girl's eyes unblinkingly staring at her with questions. She hesitated for a short moment, but then she complied:

"Because I've never seen in anyone else so much pride tempered by so much humility. Because for some reason I always seem to see all of our dreams mirrored in his eyes. Because I found out that he is much more than what he seemed to be at first glance. And each time I think that I now know everything there is to know about him, I end up finding out that there's still more to learn. But mostly because he could have simply gone off to some planet or other with a pretty girl, to raise kids or cattle like he probably wants to more than anything else. But he didn't, Trance. He didn't. He stayed to fight on, not because he wants to fight, but because others need him to do it for them. And instead of living his own private dream, he gets up every morning to face this universe and change it. And instead of having gone back to his private dream-girl when he had the chance, he decided to come back to us; and ever since he shows up on Command day after day after day, not knowing if the universe is gonna give him hell or heaven, not knowing if he'll get to spend his time with... the beauty or the beast. And yet he does it, because he's the first who cared enough about us to keep trying to chase away the shadows of our past."

"So you think you love him?"

The sharp question should have taken Beka by surprise, but it didn't. She shrugged indifferently – and slightly annoyed.

"Do you think he loves you?"

She shrugged anew.

"It doesn't really matter," she finally offered.

"Why not?"

"Because without me he'd be dead. I'm the reason that got him here. I am the reason he survives here. And that might just make him the very reason why I am alive."


End file.
